


The Unlonely Night

by Melkorstars (Vendetta23)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Blood, Childhood Trauma, Choose Your Own Ending, Dreams, Guns (Blasters), Kylux Mini Bang 2019, M/M, Mentions of Drowning, Nightmares, Past Child Abuse, Psychological, Suicidal Thoughts, good ending and bad ending, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-18 20:03:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20644886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vendetta23/pseuds/Melkorstars
Summary: "On the first nights their bodies were always shifting, something was always aching, difficult to drift off to sleep. So little they shared with each other, that feeling was at least something over which they could bond, that of being utterly misplaced. That sore spot was never replaced with true belonging, Kylo thought as he lingered between worlds, between being awake and oblivion. Had they truly found belonging in each other, nothing could drive them apart once more.But there it was, the restlessness, climbing on beneath the covers and lodging itself in between them, as if awaiting something. Like a third body on the bed."





	The Unlonely Night

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt and art by @AkaiiTwki: "Kylo and Hux has been in a relationship for a very long time but Kylo will start to have horrible nightmares who cause that Kylo use the Force unconsciously. What started as only some floating things ends with serious enjuries and his relationship gets destroyed slowly."
> 
> This was a very interesting prompt by @AkaiiTwki that I was very happy to develop. I want to thank her so much for the incredibly touching art she made, it nailed the atmosphere of the story. You can find the artist on Twitter (@AkaiiTwki) and Tumblr (akaiitwki.tumblr.com)!
> 
> Please note that this story can have a good or a bad ending, but reading both could grant a fuller understanding of the plot.

“Stop. Ren, stop” Kylo realized he couldn’t breathe, something weighing down on his chest, making him sink, his eyes flew open. A shadow, towering over him, overwhelming. Kylo reached out with his mind, to see even though his eyes could not, and still found himself blind. He lifted his hand, such heaviness, could barely move it, had to drag it to his chest, his fingers brushed feebly against skin.

“Ah, you’re awake” Kylo recognized it, the voice, even when stripped of all its usual sharpness, that had taken him some time to get used to. But he was still suspicious of it, when it wasn’t shouting, when it wasn’t a voice at war. He wondered when it would reveal its true nature underneath all that new tenderness reserved only for when they were both alone, wondered when it would punish him for allowing himself to be soothed by it. Kylo awaited in the dark for the voice to raise, for the words to cut. It didn’t. 

“You were dreaming again, thrashing around” it whispered, and the weight on his chest went away. Kylo felt the ruffle of the sheets beside him, the slight bounce of the mattress when the body repositioned itself and laid down once more. It was palpable, the restlessness, it had crept in that little universe they had built for themselves, so far removed from anything else, the shared bed, the unlonely night. 

It had taken such a long time for them to entangle themselves in a comfortable position. On the first nights their bodies were always shifting, something was always aching, difficult to drift off to sleep. So little they shared with each other, that feeling was at least something over which they could bond, that of being utterly misplaced. That sore spot was never replaced with true belonging, Kylo thought as he lingered between worlds, between being awake and oblivion. Had they truly found belonging in each other, nothing could drive them apart once more. 

But there it was, the restlessness, climbing on beneath the covers and lodging itself in between them, as if awaiting something. Like a third body on the bed. 

What was he dreaming about? He couldn’t remember. 

Kylo held his breath, searching for any signs coming from the other side of the bed, from beyond the abyss that separated them. What was he looking for? A telltale gesture that would prove Hux wasn’t really asleep? A knife?

Anything that would confirm that Kylo never really knew him. 

And so they could be back to the hesitant glances, the bursting animosity, the slight flinches when one of them moved too abruptly. They would eventually fall back into the initial loathing, and finally into utter indifference. They would become once more the strangers they never should have ceased to be. 

What is he keeping from me? The question remained when everything else inside Kylo’s mind had succumbed to the fog, resisting the peace that sleep brought. The question repeated itself again and again while exhaustion took one tiny fragment from it each time. When words were not coherent any longer, the question produced a bright red color, a warning, also dulled down as dreams approached. 

At last, Kylo’s thoughts surrendered to nothingness. The last thing he was aware of were the steady breaths of the man next to him. At that moment, Kylo knew him, Kylo trusted him. 

* * *

Kylo could tell something was wrong. As he strode down the foggy pathway he could tell he was walking on unfamiliar ground, his feet treaded uneasily on the floor. That wasn’t his dream, wasn’t even one of his nightmares, neither light or darkness he could recognize. There was a man screaming, his voice booming from above, oppressing him heavily, and still he couldn’t identify who he was. The damp and warm air began to feel slightly suffocating as he pushed on.

Kylo had Snoke temper with his dreams over his entire life, but that wasn’t it. If Snoke had chosen to torment him one more night, he would have done it through visions familiar to Kylo, twisted and maimed to disturb his past and rewrite his future. It had been like this every time Snoke forced Kylo to relive Luke, a shadow towering over him, overwhelming, his lightsaber ignited. With each time, anger grew inside Kylo, for Snoke to do whatever he desired with it.

That wasn’t it. This place wasn’t his, or a twisted reflex spilled from deep within him. The booming voice went quiet, and Kylo looked up to see a faint scarlet glow coming down from starry skies. The glow grew closer, hotter, and Kylo could see it was produced by a gigantic superweapon looming right above him.

Not a weapon, a whole planet.

A thin read thread cutting through the Galaxy, coming directly towards him. Kylo turned around, his eyes burning from the all-consuming brightness, and saw Hux standing a few paces away from him. Hux stood still as if he couldn’t see anything else, not even Kylo, his face turned upwards, his expression transfixed by the approaching certainty of annihilation. He didn’t look scared, he looked like it was all he ever wanted.

Kylo knows this is not his dream.

He starts wandering, trying to find a way out, distancing himself from the red glow and the man enticed by it. Kylo shouldn’t be here, he must have slipped into Hux’s mind while they where asleep, this was never supposed to happen, that was a boundary he would not cross, ever. And yet, here he was, stepping into the fog again. It smelled like rain.

The aimless walk on foggy nothingness had only the screaming man’s voice for company, his words were not discernable, only his rage. Kylo had thought to be somewhere in between the bridges of the minds, where it was empty and cold and lonely. But, again, that wasn’t it. That was Hux’s dream, all that was to it, a _lack_.

And then the fog was dispersed, the heaviness of the atmosphere was lifted off Kylo’s shoulders. A very strange thought occurred to him, that, if only he lifted his head, he could see, way beyond, a gleaming light.

The man’s voice ceased abruptly, a pleasant feeling spread out from the center of Kylo’s chest. It was there, the flickering light, dancing and shinning around something he couldn’t see. Kylo approached, uneasy from how inviting it was, how _promising_.

It was an ebony cube that was casting the light. Kylo circled it from afar, something holding him back, not allowing him to get closer. Kylo had never seen such brightness, had never felt before whatever it was that was blooming inside him. Blooming, not withering and dying on barren land.

Kylo took a step back. Whatever that was, it wasn’t made to be touched by his hands, seen with his eyes. It was buried deep inside Hux’s mind, in a place where Kylo’s presence only cast shadows. Kylo didn’t know such thing could exist inside Hux, it certainly couldn’t exist at the same as Kylo. Absolute light would wipe away absolute darkness.

Whatever that was, Kylo knew it could destroy him.

Hux’s voice echoed from all around Kylo, engulfing him with its snarky tone:

“In the end, that didn’t save you”

* * *

When Hux opened his eyes he already knew he was late. His head spun when he sat up, he pinched at the bridge of his nose with his fingers. Unrested once more. Hux glanced at his side where Kylo slept with his back turned to him, curled up in a defensive position, his arm covering the lower half of his face. Hux sighed. The General’s feet touched the freezing floor, the sensation pulling him from his scrambled thoughts into his usual alert state. He looked over his shoulder one last time, wondered if he wanted to stay a little more, if Kylo would want him to. Hux shook his head briskly, not the time to give into such emotions, he had work to do. 

Still, away from his quarters and from the man asleep on his bed, Hux couldn’t put his thoughts to rest. While striding down the corridors of the Supremacy, he could see Kylo everywhere, in the excessive bow of the officers’ heads, in the lurching movements driving everyone out of his path instantly as he passed. That wasn’t the respect the General had so laboriously instilled into the men, it was simply fear, fear of the man Hux now took every night in his quarters and of the devastation he could cause with his little tricks. It wasn’t General Hux his men saw when they looked at him, it was Kylo, Hux was well aware of that. 

The corridors emptied as Hux took distance from the control room, he let himself be seen heading for the hangar bay by a couple of officers, and then took a quick turn into the maze of passageways that would lead him to the very bowels of the ship. He soon found himself walking past the numerous rooms and storages that constituted the maintenance area, where workers and low-ranking officers moved around like shadows, not meant to be seen or heard doing the dirty work, and so Hux had to be very careful not to be taken by surprise. 

It was the last place anyone would think of looking for Hux, it was the last position in which anyone would picture him, his sleeve pulled up, his arm half shoved inside an old bucket of a kind of engine grease no longer used by the First Order - Hux himself had taken care of cancelling any new requisitions. And so, shelves and shelves of identical buckets sit forgotten at the extensive depths of the Supremacy. The bucket on rack 9 in room 21-B, the fourth from left to right, was empty. From inside it, Hux pulled an onyx cube that was held firmly before his scrutinizing gaze. 

So unlike him, every step of the execution, such a daring idea, that’s how Hux knew he didn’t risk discovery. Until then, at least. 

The cube felt heavy on his hand, and Hux began to carefully pick it apart. 

* * *

The bulky belt slid from his fingers, hitting the floor with a thud, and Kylo fell back on the bed. The second attempt to get dressed had also been seized by a refusal of the body, a numbness of the mind. Kylo pulled the covers over him once more, unable to muster the strength to kick off the single boot he had managed to put on. Kylo’s eyelids closed as he watched the empty space next to him on the bed.

Sleep came terrifyingly fast. 

_Kylo was stomping down the Supremacy bridge, heading for the transparent panel that offered an open view to the stars, before which Hux stood with his back to Kylo. Had Kylo pushed himself off the bed at last? He turned his head around but didn’t stop his marching, where was everyone? Kylo started to get the impression that he walked and walked and, still, Hux’s figure didn’t come any closer. _

_Kylo called, and again, and again, unsure if his voice had been carried across the room that seemed to stretch out endlessly before him. On the last time Kylo shouted, Hux’s shoulders stiffened, making it clear that the man had heard him. _

_And still, he didn’t turn around. _

_For what had seemed unreachable only a moment ago, too soon Kylo caught up with Hux, practically launching himself at him, vibrating with rage. Kylo tried to stop his hands, but they were not his own anymore, entangled in a mechanical series of movements that felt like a repetitive echo, like he had done it before, like he would always do this. His hands grabbed Hux’s shoulders and turned him forcibly around, shook his figure in hopes of snatching any reaction from that impassive face which simply stared at him. At last, Kylo let him go, grunting with impotence. _

_But he knew it wasn’t over, he had seen this before, countless times. _

_It was like Hux’s features didn’t stir any emotions inside Kylo. All the way from the delicate lines worry had imprinted on his forehead over time down to the pale lips that Kylo could render slightly swollen and rosy by kissing, it was as if Kylo never knew this man in front of him, and no glimpse of recognition was on Hux’s eyes either. Kylo staggered back. _

And gasped awake, clutching the covers with slippery hands. 

Kylo wasn’t alone in the room, but the strain on the muscles of his back didn’t leave him upon realizing who it was that was sitting in the shadows. Hux lifted an eyebrow and glanced at him, the faint blue light of the datapad rendering his face the only visible part of his body. Kylo caught himself trying to spot where the other man’s hands were. 

“Tell me what I can do” Hux spoke the words carefully, his voice hoarse from shouting commands throughout the double shift from which he had just returned. All the lights of the ship had long been lowered to 30%, signalizing the end of one more cycle. 

‘_I don’t know, I don’t know what you’re capable of’_ the thought surged in Kylo’s mind before he realized he had misunderstood the question. 

Sighing at the lack of response, Hux put down his datapad and proceeded to change into his robes. He could feel Kylo’s eyes on him, the anxious expectation, _expecting what?_ Hux crossed the room and sat by Kylo on the bed, his exhausted body wanting to crumble down and rest, but resisting the temptation. Hux still had work to do. 

“Lie down” Hux managed to get the words out in the most impassive way possible, trying not to disengage from the unmoved tone with which he had been giving orders all day long. He had long ago forfeited this tone when alone with Kylo, _was that what they were back to?_ He thought Kylo wouldn’t move, his torso uplifted by his elbows, but at last he let himself fall back on the mattress, his movements stiff from suspicion just like their first nights together. 

“I don’t need help going back to sleep” Kylo muttered, already beginning to turn away from Hux. 

“I know that” Hux answered calmly, recalling how easily it had become for Kylo to drift off as soon as he rested his head on the pillow. Hux had thought it was due to tiredness at first, and later he welcomed it gladly as a sign of how carefree Kylo had slowly become in front of him. But then, it turned into something else. Kylo didn’t simply lie down to rest anymore, he collapsed. “You need help with what comes after it” 

Kylo went still besides him. He won’t accept my help, Hux thought, not with his stubbornness mixed with distrust. 

Kylo’s dream came back to him in bits, how unfamiliar Hux’s face had been there, how far apart they stood. He turned to Hux, sitting with his legs crossed next to him, Kylo looked at the empty space in between them, at the ruffled sheets, thought he could mend it. 

“How?” Kylo’s question came to Hux as a surprise, he was expecting to be, once more, shut out. 

“Something I was taught long ago” Hux pressed his lips together, forming a thin line that turned slightly downwards at the corner. Hux pushed through, forcing the words to come out, if he needed Kylo to lean against him, he had to welcome him with open hands, spread-out fingers to show empty palms. “By Sloane. I used to lay my head on her lap, allow her voice to guide me. It made the nights more bearable”. _Slightly_, he left that part out. 

“You’re telling me to lay my head on your lap?” Kylo’s tone had an edge to it. Hux thought of his fingers sinking into Kylo’s locks, making their way down to press softly at the base of his neck, it came so naturally, before. 

“No” Hux dismissed the thoughts, not allowing them to weigh down on his chest “I’m asking you to close your eyes and concentrate on my voice” Hux leaned his back against the wall, assuming a somewhat comfortable position that allowed him to be still for a while, not to alarm Kylo at any sign of movement. 

Kylo huffed with impatience at what he thought was a waste of time. But the dream came back to him once more, hauntingly, and he yielded to the fear of it coming true by shutting his eyes hesitantly. 

“In Arkanis it was always raining” Hux wasted no time, but soon regretted how he had started off. Sloane always had thrilling stories of adventures at the tip of her tongue, unbelievable tales, impossible creatures, decaying ruins that belonged to ancient civilizations, she always promised Armitage that, one day, it would all be theirs to restore to a long-lost glory under her Empire. Hux could not give Kylo those glimpses of a venturous past or a promising future. All Hux had behind him were the rains of Arkanis and the chilling interiors of a ship, all of which he undertook utterly alone. 

“The waves would crash against the rocks with such strength, if you would only stop and pay attention, you could feel the cliffs vibrating under your boots” he continued, paying no mind to Kylo’s slight shifts beside him but noticing that the other man’s features were no longer twisted in a frown. “The cadets would sometimes sneak out of the fortress at night, launch themselves at the sea on rudimentary boats to catch the immense fish that swam on its depths. The fish were white for the Sunlight never touched them, their scales gleamed in the dark” 

Weak and feeble Armitage was never invited to come along, but he waited the whole night by the slits of the northern tower for the frail glow to appear on the dim shore, indicating the cadets had returned and would soon come in through the back gate, carrying the day’s spoils, weighing them to sort out who had caught the bigger fish, exchanging seashells and hand-crafted weapons among themselves.

As it was forbidden to go outside the walls at night or to approach the perilous ocean, the cadets then left one last time through the back gate to bury the fish in the sand, deep down where their glow couldn’t be seen anymore. The cadets had always thought they left the fish there to rot, never knew they were followed every time by young small Armitage cloaked under the dimmest darkness that preceded the twilight.

Hux remembered how proud he was of himself for becoming so skilled in sneaking around unseen. Until his father started to call him a rat, for he thought it was so hilarious and fitting. That took away any pride Hux had in it. If Hux was so good at going behind someone’s back, it was only because he was too weak to face them directly. That, his father told him, made him a coward. Hux left that part out, telling Kylo only how he would bury his arms up to his elbows in sand after the carcasses.

Armitage had never learned how the fish survived in complete darkness, no matter how he cut them open and took careful notes, he always returned empty-handed to his own quarters, leaving dawn at its break behind him.

At the same time his words trailed off with vague descriptions of planets he had visited with his father, the names long forgotten, Hux’s mind wandered back to one of many days where everything went wrong. The day when Brendol had dragged the group of cadets to the shore, holding the children at the point of his blaster.

Hux shook his head slightly, tried to focus on the green waterfall of that planet he visited on a mission… what was the name?

Brendol holding a girl’s head underwater. Armitage watched her thrashing from the slits of the northern tower. 

The green waterfall, a reconnaissance mission, the first one he was allowed to go alone. Hux could see the foam that was formed a long way down. A violent drop. Certainly deadly, Hux had calculated.

The girl was the most violent to him when night came and Armitage woke up to find his bed surrounded by the cadets. She held the pillow over his face while the others pinned him down.

“…what’s like not to breathe’”

It was all coming to Hux at once, he uncrossed his legs on the bed, tried to fill his lungs with air. He senses Kylo shifting restlessly next to him.

The green waterfall, the sharp rocks covered in foam that Hux observed from above. He told himself he was only taking notes on the terrain. And then his eyes went back to the drop below him, and again, and again.

_What is like not to breathe. _

As soon as the cadets left, another figure slipped through the door. Armitage braced himself with shaking hands, thinking they had come back for more. What he saw was green eyes like his, red hair like his.

“I didn’t tell them off” Armitage, the hateful seed of that hateful man, said “I didn’t…”

“I know” Brendol smirked, he had smirked through the whole thing “That was because I told them you did” he approached, Armitage hit his back on the bed frame.

“And _this_ is because you didn’t” Brendol lifted his hand.

The impact reverberated through all of Hux’s body. He was going to give into his natural weakness, plead him to stop, but the air was knocked out of his lungs. When Hux opened his eyes, he was sprawled on the floor across his quarters, Kylo looking at him wide-eyed.

“I…” Kylo said feebly.

“Stay out of my head!” Hux shouted after gasping for air.

“I didn’t mean…” it felt _so real_.

“I mean it, Ren” Hux spat with every ounce of menace he could muster. In the darkness of his quarters he must have looked like _him_, the same green eyes, the same red hair. The spitting image.

Kylo braced himself with shaking hands, his back hit the bedframe.

Both men stared at each other in silence.

* * *

“Supreme Leader, I don’t believe he is ill” Hux stood straight before Snoke’s throne, the little strength he had barely enough to keep his posture from slouching, his eyes open and his mind shielded “I am certain I can bring him back”

“Then why haven’t you, General? Was that not what you were supposed to be doing since this all began?” Snoke’s face was covered by a hood, his head dangling and swaying as if weighting too much to be kept still. The Praetorian Guard now stood closer to the throne, Hux noticed.

Kylo was decaying, that was what Snoke had told Hux when he was summoned to the Throne Room weeks ago. And Hux was to reverse the process, snatch Kylo away from his dreams, steal that one more thing from him. Snoke trusted the General would be able to easily influence him given the… nature of their relationship.

It became clear, over time, that Snoke was the one who was withering away. 

The more Kylo was left to his sleep, the more secluded the Supreme Leader became, the thinner his form under the robes, the raspier his voice would get.

“Supreme Leader, I…” Hux pushed only one thought out of his shields, visualizing it to the tiniest details, to the most painful little sensation. Hux’s body hitting the wall, the surge of pain, betrayal, hatred.

“You failed, General” Snoke dragged his words, taking a long, penetrating look at Hux, who focused on his anger “But you won’t fail me again”

When Hux leaned his back against the elevator panel, he decided it had to be done soon.

* * *

Kylo didn’t know if Hux had finally joined him on his quarters for the night or if he was dreaming. He didn’t know how many cycles had passed since he began to wake up alone, since he had hurt Hux like he always knew he would. Kylo would dream over and over that he was being forgiven, sometimes by Hux inviting him back into his arms, touching him gently and willingly, sometimes they would talk, and sometimes nothing at all would happen to acknowledge that night, but they would fall back into their routine, back on each other’s lips and embraces. What all those dreams had in common was that Kylo woke up to an empty bed.

So Kylo doesn’t know if the shift on the mattress had really happened, if the steady breathing is really there.

Hux thinks to himself that that was the last night they would share together like this. Lying down next to Kylo, he wonders if the man would know what had happened to him, in case he failed.

Kylo doesn’t turn around on the bed, he knows he is alone in the room.

Hux wonders if Kylo would know he did it so the nightmares would stop.

Kylo feels the drowsiness coming to claim him, pull him under still waters. If Kylo thought of the luminous fish swimming on the depths of Arkanis’ ocean, the bad dreams wouldn’t come, Snoke couldn’t reach him. In such depths there was only him and Hux. In reality, Kylo was still waiting.

Hux can’t sleep, but he knows, from Kylo’s mumbling disconnected words, that his dreams are pleasing.

Kylo doesn’t need to turn around, he knows the bed is empty.

Hux knows Kylo is having everything he can’t have if he were awake. And, while Kylo has those things, Snoke can’t have him, can’t feed on him, can’t survive without him.

Kylo wishes Hux were there.

Hux hopes he is a better man to Kylo in his dreams.

Kylo parts his lips to say what he says each one of those nights, never to receive an answer.

“Hux. If you’re here. I’m scared. Will you listen?"

* * *

**THE BAD ENDING**

Hux stays silent, focusing on what lays ahead of him, just a few hours away, one more thing he has to do alone, just one more thing.

Kylo is no longer in his quarters, he is standing on the rains of Arkanis. He pays attention, and he can feel the ground trembling under his feet.

“I’m right here, Kylo” Hux is standing near the cliff, his hand outstretched in Kylo’s direction “Tell me, what is it?”

Kylo takes a few steps ahead on the slippery path, taking Hux’s hand to pull himself closer. He doesn’t let go.

“It’s nothing. Nothing that matters anymore”

* * *

Emerging from the bowels of the Supremacy, Hux understood it wasn’t mere luck that he hadn’t encountered anyone on his way. With the black cube clasped hard on his hand, he stomped through empty corridors that should have been swarming with officers and other personnel by that early hour. Hux proceeded to the elevator that would take him to the Throne Room, having the gaping feeling that he is being awaited.

General Hux twists the cube on his fingers, the little artifact so dear to his father it was the only thing he kept locked in his quarter’s safe.

“Some will come up waving around their little magic, they will think that it grants them power, but I… Armitage, I seized power with my own hands, I don’t rely on anything else” his father had had that same hateful smirk on his face, Hux wanted to be the one to wipe it off “And that’s what makes me the one with the power” his father sat relaxed on his chair, sure he held the strings that moved every pawn according to his game. But it was there, an edge to his tone, the increasing uneasiness around force users when he got orders to identify them and hunt them down for the First Order. His house of cards, so carefully built, threatened by little tricks he couldn’t understand. Brendol had began to carry the cube with him at all times, letting Armitage glimpse it but holding back the knowledge to what it was. The artifact was his protection, as was the idea he passed to his son that he was the man that held many secrets that made him untouchable. His father had believed his only threat where the force users, didn’t look twice at his frail son. That was his mistake.

“In the end, that didn’t save you” Hux was now the one to smirk. One more thing he had carried out alone.

Hux stepped out of the elevator to find Snoke crumbled down at the foot of his throne, the Praetorian Guard standing back, their weapons all dropped on the floor by their sides. Hux took another hesitant step, one hand brushing against the blaster on his belt.

When Snoke gave one hoarse laugh, Hux came to a halt, ceasing to look nervously around and noticing the rotten flesh dangling from Snoke’s hooded head. The stench was unbearable.

“My apprentice, after everything I did for him, left me to starve” Snoke’s frail body trembled slightly, he lifted his cadaveric hand as if admiring the extent of his own decay “What a spark of hope can do, and I thought he would be the one to snuff it out”

The guards where not approaching, and so Hux made his move, setting the dark cube on the floor and sliding his thumb over it to activate it. Red threads spread out over the ebony surface, indicating the counter Force field had been generated. When Hux stood up again, he expected to see Snoke’s features twisted in fear and outrage. They weren’t. Hux took out the blaster swiftly, aimed right at Snoke’s head, expecting a reaction. He didn’t get one.

“In the end, it wasn’t I to get a hold of my apprentice’s mind” Snoke eyed the barrel of the blaster “It was a puny General, a rabid cur with no use that should have been put down a long time ago”

Hux turned off the safety, a look of triumph lighting up his face. At last, they would be free. _Just one more thing he had to carry out alone._

“In the end, General, you carried out my orders exceptionally well, you fulfilled my duty better than I did” Hux let Snoke talk. He hadn’t been there to witness his father’s dying words, he needed to know what it would be like to hear them, a man’s last words, when he was the one to be pulling the trigger “You were the one to destroy him”

“What do you mean” Hux knew those words meant nothing, a last attempt for Snoke to save himself, or torment him. Nevertheless, Hux felt hollow.

“I have no use for him anymore, for _he_ has no use for this world anymore”

Hux finger pressed lightly on the trigger.

“Do you think you won?” Snoke dropped to the floor before Hux had the opportunity to take the shot.

* * *

Hux was running down the empty Supremacy corridors, his blaster had slipped off his hand.

“Kylo” Hux kneeled down by the bed and shook the other man by his shoulders. He then brushed off Kylo’s locks with his fingers, uncovering Kylo’s relaxed features, and held his face with both hands.

To fall asleep, Kylo had thought of the fish that gleamed in the darkness.

“Kylo, wake up. Kylo, come to me” Hux first whispered in the man’s ear, and then began to shout.

_“Kylo, come to me” Hux turned around, waiting for him just a few steps ahead. Before them, the lanky trees of the Arkanis forest stretched out without end. Kylo caught up with Hux, entangling their fingers together lazily, unafraid something would try to separate them. They made their descend from the cliff into the woods, the ocean roaring behind them. _

“Kylo, please, come back to me, please” Hux clawed at the unconscious man, lifting his torso and pulling him closer.

* * *

**THE GOOD ENDING**

“I’m right here, Kylo” Hux murmurs after a moment of hesitation, he raises his hand and places it on Kylo’s cheek, maybe the last night they can have this. Kylo blinks at him, then places his own hand on top of his, feeling the flesh as if to make sure it’s really there.

“I’m afraid, Hux. I don’t know if I’m dreaming…” Kylo slides his hand down and holds Hux’s wrist, his grip desperate “or if I’m awake”

Hux had to think for a moment. He thought of every night he had curled himself up to sleep, cold, lonely and beaten.

“It’s simple, Kylo” he ended up saying “You know that you’re awake when it hurts”

* * *

The early hours of the cycle had Hux sliding off the bed after planting a kiss to Kylo’s jaw. The General silently opened up his drawer, attached his personal blaster to his belt and slid twin knives into his right boot.

_Kylo is standing under the rains of Arkanis, he lets them wash over him while he climbs up the slippery path to the cliff that rose high above the ocean. Hux is waiting for him, right at the edge of the cliff, he is looking over the endless sea and the waves that clash against the rocks way down below. Kylo’s foot glides on the rocky path, and he has to tread carefully, often regaining his balance. _

_“Hux?” Kylo has to shout to be heard over the sound of the rain “What are you doing on Arkanis? You told me you wouldn’t bear to come back” Kylo asked himself if he was dreaming, he couldn’t answer “We can leave, you can leave with me, I can take you anywhere else you want” _

_Hux turned his back to the ocean and faced Kylo, his serene expression could never tell all the pain and misery Hux endured on that planet. But Kylo knew, he knew. _

_“Why wouldn’t I be here?” Hux frowned slightly “The view is beautiful”_

Hux moved purposefully first to retrieve the ebony cube from room 21-B and then to take the elevator to the Throne Room. He turned the heavy artifact on his fingers, it seemed eager to remind him of darker times, of the increasing paranoia of the man who owned it. Blood and revenge put a stop to it, all of it. But Hux had only one thing in mind when he stepped into the Throne Room, blaster in hand: it wasn’t the thirst for a final reckoning, he looked at some point beyond that, a future finally wielding into his touch, to be shared by him and Kylo.

“In the end, that didn’t save you” Hux muttered to himself “But it might save me”

Just one last thing standing on their way.

The Praetorian Guard had their weapons ignited and ready, but the soldiers stood waiting. Snoke had his face covered by his slim hand, his hooded head pending forward. He slowly raised his arm and pointed a trembling finger in Hux’s direction. Without need of a verbal command, the Praetorian Guard began to advance.

Hux quickly slides his thumb over the ebony cube and let it drop heavily on the floor. The counter Force field activated, the guards began to tremble and waver, their hands unsteady on the grips of their weapons. Snoke lifts his head from his hand, his features twisted in surprise and terror, and then begins to claw violently at his face, screaming agonizingly.

Hux begins to take precise shots that pierce through the small opening of the guards’ armor.

_Kylo takes a step on Hux’s direction. _

_“Come on, I can take you anywhere else” Hux looks at him bewildered. _

_“Why would I want to go? Why would I want to keep walking if I’m happy here?” _

_“You’re not happy here, you never were, you told me so” the sound of thunder echoes down from the skies, a storm is coming._

_“Why do we keep walking when we can stand right here where nothing hurts?” Hux offers his hand to Kylo, who stares at it. _

_Kylo blinks and the scenery shifts completely. They are standing on a clearing, surrounded by trees on a warm night on Chandrila. Light is coming from behind Kylo, his elongated shadow stretches out before him. Kylo turns to face a door, half open, standing alone in the middle of the clearing. There’s nothing behind it but what it comes out of its slit is a yellow homely light, tiny insects are drawn to it and fly in circles around the door. _

_Kylo doesn’t need to get closer to recognize his parents’ rushed whispers and remember the things he would hear being said about him. _

_“No, Hux” Kylo took a step back “We can’t stay here, we need to keep walking”_

_Hux shakes his head slowly._

_“Pay attention, Kylo” he says patiently, Kylo couldn’t remember the last time he saw Hux beaming like this “Pay attention to what you feel inside you”_

_Kylo didn’t need to do that, he remembered how he felt: betrayed, afraid, alone. _

_“What’s that?” Hux turned his head to the starry sky, Kylo heard the faint sound of an engine far above them. He knew that sound very well, it was the sound of his dad leaving. And there it was, the Falcon flying across the darkening skies, going some place far away where Ben couldn’t follow. The door had closed behind him. _

_“Please, Kylo, pay attention” Hux urged him, still, his voice was soft “What are you feeling?”_

_Kylo knew what he was feeling, he remembered it, burning inside him to the point of leaving a permanent mark. Kylo opened his mouth to tell Hux about how much pain he felt, but went silent when he realized he was feeling nothing. _

_“You see?” Hux smiled “I would never lie to you. Here, we don’t hurt, and we can stop searching for anything else. We can be here together, forever” Hux spreads the fingers of his outstretched hand “Please”_

_That’s how Kylo knew he was dreaming, and that he needed to wake up. _

Hux caught the red gleam of the guard’s armor from the corner of his eye and dodged just in time to avoid a hit. His blaster had been knocked out of his hand as soon as he took down the fourth guard, so he reached out to the strap inside his boot and produced the twin knives he had brought along. Hux starts cutting.

_‘I can’t do this on my own’_ the thought crosses his mind as he starts to panic.

“Hope, General” Hux was only faintly aware of Snoke’s words “Hope stained my apprentice’s mind because you were foolish enough to let him glimpse a future where I no more existed”

Hux howled in pain when a hot blade burned his arm.

Snoke grinned, “I always knew you were coming”

_Kylo is running. Hux, the clearing, the door, the ship, all were left behind as he barges his way through the stinging twigs of the woods. The world around him keeps changing every few steps: he runs through Luke’s Academy in flames, through Dagobah’s destroyed three, through his empty home, all things he brought to pieces. _

_He stops running when he sees himself, standing before Hux in an empty conference room. He had just set his helmet down on the table, Hux leaned tentatively forward, stopping inches from Kylo’s face as if calculating all the odds that was a bad idea. Kylo knew what came next, their first kiss, their first night together, and yet, he felt nothing upon reliving this moment. _

_He runs faster. _

Kylo wakes up clutching his chest, his hand flies to the other side of the bed, feels nothing. He shuts his eyes, searching, going over the entire ship until he stumbles on a wide empty space, cut off from the Force, right where Snoke’s throne is.

* * *

Kylo was well acquainted with the aftermaths of destructive rage, but even he had never seen something like that.

“My apprentice, at last” Kylo hears as he walks over the bodies of the Praetorian Guards, his bare feet becoming soaked in blood “Turn that thing off” Snoke orders, he is kneeled down before Hux, a blaster held to his head, an Emperor dethroned. Hux didn’t take his eyes off the defeated figure.

Kylo stares silently at the small cube a few paces before him, under the impression he had seen it before.

_Kylo knew it could destroy him_.

“Do you know what he is going to do to you after he is done with me? He will kill you, he will take the First Order to himself. HE, UNWHORTY OF IT” Snoke cries out “You let yourself be weakened, you forgot everything I taught you. Whatever it was that he promised, you can’t have it” Snoke spat, shuddering heavily “It is I that can give you what you truly desire, it is I…” Kylo lifted his hand and twisted it to put an end to Snoke’s poisonous words.

But Kylo found himself powerless.

“He will turn on you” Snoke laughed madly “He will turn on you just like…” Hux takes the shot.

And then turns to Kylo, blaster still in hand.

Kylo had been inside Hux’s mind, had seen why he had done everything he did for power. Hux was always destined to rule, and he would rule alone.

Kylo shut his eyes, expecting pain, and then nothing. He thinks to himself that he should have never woken up. Hux would turn on him just like everyone else. Kylo was always destined to die like this, and he would die alone.

But the shot never came.

“Deactivate the device” Hux says simply as he stores the blaster away on his belt and turns to the wide panel of glass that looks out to the stars. Kylo takes some time to finally reach down and touch hesitantly at the ebony surface. The red threads that cut through the artifact stop glowing.

Kylo doesn’t stop to take in the sight of Snoke’s body, he walks on until he is by Hux’s side, standing with him as they look at the never-ending Galaxy.

They ask themselves at the same time what comes next as their hands reach out instinctively, fingers entangled.


End file.
